Last year, the U.S. government issued visas to more than 16,000 children coming to this country to be adopted. That's more than twice the number of adoption visas issued ten years ago. Still, 16,000 is a small number compared to the several million children who live in orphanages throughout the world.
That was one of the first quandaries facing Troy and Lan Burden when they decided to adopt. There are so many children in need. Where to begin?
The Burdens began by researching the adoption procedures of various countries. In the end, the Utah couple decided on China, where the government works through international adoption agencies, and the cost — while not low — is predictable.
The country also has hundreds of thousands of abandoned babies, most of them healthy, most of them girls.
Gwen Andrus, of Provo, is in the process of adopting her third daughter from China. Because she has experience and because she has faith in the process, she has become a resource for other Utahns. She gets calls from those waiting to adopt as well as those who are thinking about it.
When adopting from a foreign country, "there are going to be some unknowns," she says. Asking too many questions of Chinese people causes them to lose face and produces no answers, she says. "We may never know why the process takes nine months, now, when it used to take six."
As for those who are considering adopting a child from China, Andrus advises them to start by investigating international adoption agencies.
The National Adoption Information Clearinghouse is a federally funded organization that provides information about adoption. Most of the information is free and available online www.calib.com/naic or by phone, 1-888-251-0075. If you want to know what the Chinese government will expect, visit the China Center of Adoption Affairs Web site www.china-ccaa.org/lyfe.htm.
You can read the government regulations on your own, but when it comes to actually adopting, you will be required to use an agency. The agency will walk you through the U.S. and Chinese paperwork.
Andrus has used three different agencies — and worked for one of them — and liked them all. The cost may vary between agencies, she says, but the speed of the adoption won't.
"Right now the least expensive adoptions are running about $12,500," she says. "Depending on the services you purchase and how many people you plan to take to China, it could cost as much as $18,000."
Part of what you pay goes to the U.S. government, part to the adoption agency and part to the Chinese government.
Andrus enumerates a dozen different fees — for background checks, fingerprinting, passport and travel documents for the baby. There are fees for notaries, translators, the facilitator you'll need once you get to China. A home study alone costs between $400 and $800.
Also included in the total is a $3,000 contribution to the orphanage where your child has lived. Andrus knows a bit about how that money is used.
Six years ago, when she adopted her first child, the orphanage director told her that only 30 percent of the babies in his orphanage would live to see a first birthday. Two years later, when Andrus adopted a second daughter from that orphanage, she asked the director if the donations from adoptive parents were making any difference. He said yes; they were now feeding the babies four bottles a day instead of two, and nearly every child was surviving.
When prospective parents ask what to expect, Andrus likes to tell them that.
The process seems complicated. According to Andrus, you will fill out dozens of forms and have them notarized in the United States. You will send off an application that's an inch thick. And then, when you get to China, you will sit in government offices and be interviewed and fill out more forms.
You will promise never to abandon your daughter. You will promise to make her your heir. You will promise to raise her with knowledge of her Chinese culture, she says.
Your daughter will make promises, too. A Chinese official will dip her foot in red ink and affirm, with her footprint, that she allows the Chinese government to make this decision for her. She'll promise to give up her Chinese citizenship with no ill will.
Every adoptive parent Andrus knows says the same thing. "It had to happen the way it did. She came at the right time."
No matter what their religious beliefs, Andrus says, parents come to feel that this was the child they were meant to have, this is the family that was meant to be.
That's exactly what the Burdens say now. The fact that they waited longer than they expected gave them time to make child-care arrangements. Nor did it matter that they were expecting a 6-month-old baby and got a 2-year-old instead. From the first day, they were charmed by their chatty toddler.
They hadn't been together for more than a few hours when Lan, who was born in Vietnam, had taught little Kirra to count to three in Chinese, in Vietnamese and in English. It wasn't long before Lan taught her to say, "Hello, I'm Kirra Burden. I'm made in China."